The Traitor's Daughter

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Elizabeth stood in the center of a large crowd of people, all of them screaming obscenities at a scaffold that eerily loomed a few yards away from Elizabeth. The masked executioner stood behind the block, ax in hand, ready for his victim.

The crowd called for the traitor to be brought out, the energy in the air growing more impatient by the second. Elizabeth craned her neck to see if she could see over the heads of the men in front of her, but it was no use. She still didn't know who was being executed, and she couldn't shake the uneasy feeling that seemed to be taking over her body.

"It's a shame, you know," a woman to Elizabeth's left muttered. Elizabeth turned and met the dirty woman's gaze, a look of confusion on her face. "He was such a nice gentleman. So handsome, so young. Never been married. Such a shame that the boy didn't have a good head on his shoulders. Could have avoided this whole thing altogether had he not gotten involved with that dark-haired bitch."

"I'm sorry, I don't understand," Elizabeth began to say helplessly. "Who's getting executed today?"

The peasant woman looked Elizabeth up and down and looked at her in disgust and was about to say something, when a commotion towards the front of the crowd drew the woman's attention away from Elizabeth.

She followed the peasant woman's gaze to the scaffold, her heart immediately dropping at the sight. Henry was propped up between two guards his knees shaking as he tried to stay standing. His curls that Elizabeth loved, were matted and hung limply around his bruised and bloodied face, and Elizabeth couldn't help but bite her lip to keep from crying out.

The guards dragged Henry to the block, then forced him to his knees, forgoing the speech that Henry was supposed to give, where he was expected to confess to his sins and ask for the king's forgiveness. Henry's head hit the block hard, the sound resonating throughout the small area, despite the loud cheers from the spectators. The guards kept their hands on Henry's shoulders, ready to hold him down if he tried to fight them. But the way that Henry seemed to relax and put his weight onto the block showed that he was accepting his fate and wouldn't try to do anything to get out of it.

Elizabeth began to push her way through the crowd, but every time she seemed to take a step, she grew farther away from the scaffold, instead of closer. She began to run, just as the executioner stepped up next to Henry, his ax raised. Still, the scaffold moved farther away from her.

"Wait, stop!" Elizabeth had tried to scream, but her voice came out as a whisper.

The executioner swung his ax down, the blade whistling as it cut through the air. In one swift stroke, Henry's head was removed from his body and bounced down onto the ground below the scaffold with a sickening thud. It rolled on the ground, and the crowds of people in front of Elizabeth parted, in order to stay away from the head, which seemed to be gaining speed as it continued to roll on the flat ground, blood spraying everywhere as it moved.

Soon, Elizabeth was the only person still standing in the path of the head, which was growing nearer to her by the second. She stayed frozen in place, unable to move as she watched it land at her feet. Henry's lifeless eyes gazed up at her accusingly, his mouth wide open. She fought the urge to vomit, but couldn't break the eye contact, no matter how hard she tried to look away.

"You're next," Henry's head whispered to her.

"What?" Elizabeth demanded, her heart beating wildly in her chest. She must have heard wrong. The head couldn't have spoken to her.

"You're next," he repeated once more, his voice louder.

"You're next. You're next. You're next..." the crowd chanted. She looked up to see the crowd looking at her, all of them with the similar evil expressions on their faces, which sent chills up Elizabeth's spine.